Here We Are

Hey, all you friends out there!

The first night of APE 2010 wrapped up tonight at 7 o'clock and I'll be back there tomorrow from 11:00-6:00. I've been selling some prints from my photo project as well as little felted animals and felt flower barrettes. Here are the other images from my project that some of you may not have already seen:














So these are a few of the many fun things you'll find at APE tomorrow. I had a great time watching people's responses to my work, and very much enjoyed being able to walk around a little to see what everyone else was up to (I obtained two wonderful Tove Jansson childrens' books and am planning on snatching up a certain comic tomorrow morning before all the copies run out). I'm a bit too tired to write anything else intelligible, but I would like to say thanks to my friends and family for stopping by today and making things even more fun than they already were.

Nighty night (and perhaps I'll see some of you tomorrow),

Lea Z.

For Real

Greetings, Gals and fellas!

After spending approximately 11 hours and an indeterminate amount of money, I have succeeded in printing many copies of each of six images from my first photo-illustration project. These will be obtainable on Oct. 16th and 17th at the Alternative Press Expo (also known as APE), at the Concourse Exhibition Center in San Francisco.

Here's a peek at one of the images in store (another can be viewed on the first post of this blog):





This project had been sitting around in my head for about a quarter of a century before I finally got moving on it, and I am ever so delighted that it has reached completion. Now that it's all wrapped up, I've got more ideas floating around in my head just waiting to be made into real things.

Sleep tight and see you next time,

Lea Z.

So Close, Yet so Far Away...

Dearest Readers,

I am getting closer to finishing my photo-illustration project in spite of the fact that I've had to re-shoot about a trillion times. The important lesson here is that giving up just because one is discouraged doesn't make things work better; perseverance does! It's time to push as many buttons as possible till something happens...

With that, I haven't got anything from the project that I feel like posting just yet (what surprise would there be in that?).

I do, however, have a couple of images for you from last weekend's Eat Real Fest, which took place on August 27th, 28th, and 29th. The steer butchery contest fell on the 28th, also my birthday, which means I was welcomed into my twenty-fifth year by some nice-lookin' butchers and a very large amount of grass-fed meat. I photographed the same event last year and it was just as fun and exciting the second time around.

For your viewing pleasure:










Anyone interested in seeing more photographs from the Eat Real Fest can go to the Flickr group, where one can view pictures by many talented photographers who volunteered their time to document the festival. Special thanks go to my good friend Robyn J., who invited me to participate both last year and this year, and who worked her butt off helping to organize the entire gigantic event.

All right, then, it's about my bedtime. Any awkward sentences or grammatical errors can be blamed on the awesome, distracting Finnish music that I've stuck into my ears this evening.

Till we meet again,

Lea Z.

Way Too Hot

Dear friends,

As it has become clear that there's no way I'm working on my illustration project in this weather (it's hot enough without the photo lights), I 've decided to post a new entry to create the illusion that I'm being productive.

With that, I present to you some recent photographs of the very first of my garden produce (okay, so I guess I actually am being productive):





Green beans and basil, which I chopped up with some red onion and dressed with the standard olive oil and vinegar combination, salt, pepper, and possibly some other things that I can't quite remember.





The second small batch of beans and my very first homegrown squash which, disappointingly, looked a lot better than it tasted.

And here's one more for the road:





This one isn't from my garden; it's an artichoke grown by my dad and step-mom which has since been delivered to my house, steamed, dipped in salty lemon-butter and eaten.

That's all for now!

Until next time,

Lea Z.

At Long Last

Dear Pals,

I've finally gotten off my butt to create this newfangled blog which I will be using to share my work.

Food and art are at the very top of my list of favorite things. I have a degree in photography, practice the obsessive-compulsive art of needle-felting and, when either or both of these things have caused my blood sugar to plummet to the point of hysteria, enjoy cooking and/or baking something tasty. Combining two or three of the aforementioned activities makes me happiest; I'm currently working on a series of photographic illustrations based on felt and photographic sculpture (whew!), and when I need a break from that I take pictures of the food that I make.

Since I've managed to drink about seven or eight cups of tea today, I decided to kick off with this image from my illustration project:







And, since you can't have tea without cookies (well, I suppose you can, but what's the fun in that?), I've also included a photo of today's baking endeavor: cardamom cookies from The Finnish Cookbook by Beatrice A. Ojakangas.






If these look tasty to you, I highly recommend picking up a copy of the book. It's my favorite cookbook and has never let me down.


Till we meet again,


Lea Z.